The Mother-in-Law

Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law) is a comedy by Terence, the Roman playwright of the second century BC, and the second of his six surviving plays. It was first staged in 165 BC, during the aedileship of Sextus Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella. It probably follows a Greek model, a play of the same name by Apollodorus of Carystus that has been lost, so it is impossible to say precisely how original Terence was.

Its staging was troubled. The first attempt was interrupted when the audience left after a rumour spread that a tightrope walker and boxers were about to perform. A second attempt, in 160 BC, was cancelled after a disturbance caused by a crowd of gladiator fans who stormed the theatre. The play was finally performed successfully at a third attempt that same year. Scholars debate whether it was a real failure, since no records survive of later revivals.

The plot centres on Pamphilus, a young Athenian in love with the courtesan Bacchis, whom his father forces him to marry to Philumena, the daughter of a neighbour. Pamphilus resists consummating the marriage, hoping his wife will tire of him and leave, but he eventually falls in love with her. While he is away collecting an inheritance, Philumena, who had been raped before the wedding, finds herself pregnant and returns to her parents' home, avoiding her mother-in-law Sostrata, who is wrongly accused of unkindness. When the child is born, Pamphilus believes it is not his and rejects his wife, while the old men suspect he still clings to Bacchis. The resolution comes when Bacchis recognises a ring Pamphilus once gave her on Philumena's finger, revealing that he is the true father.

The play is notable for its well-drawn characters, especially the matrons Sostrata and Myrrhina, virtuous and understanding women, and for Bacchis, a noble courtesan who helps save the marriage. Terence combines intrigue with a reflection on human understanding, the ideal of humanitas that later generations admired. The slave Parmeno mainly serves to explain the situation and keep the audience in suspense, as he is often kept away from what is going on.

Its later influence was moderate, though echoes can be found in Renaissance works such as Benedetto Varchi's La suocera (1557) and Ariosto's Il negromante (1530). In Spanish literature, Cervantes presents a similar family scene in La fuerza de la sangre, one of his Exemplary Novels. In the nineteenth century, Alexandre Dumas fils recalls the same Terentian ideal of human compassion in La dame aux camélias (1848).